Monday, December 31, 2018

Supposed to watch a musical teather with frailed mother, in which a niece was performing, but an incident at the teather entrance ended mother had to undergo emergency operation for an open fracture.

There was another nonsense over the weekend. Though there was no prior statutory branch and division meetings held, it was supposed to be PPBM's first AGM after winning GE.

Expectation was for something significant on their struggle as Malay and Muslim based party of the Prime Minister. It became an event similar to a divorcee endlessly bitching of their ex and could only promise the next marriage not be like the previous.

The biggest nonsense must be VP, Tan Sri Rashid Abd Rahman requesting "openly" for contracts to be awarded to division head to finance PPBM division operation. And, Syed Saddiq said PPBM is not UMNO 2.0 or 3.0...

There have been too many such political nonsense in 2018 that Assistant Minister and Principal Secretary to the Sarawak Chief Minister Office, Abdullah Saidol had an interesting new year wish.

Friday, December 28, 2018

Public statements by political leaders to the public and media are fair, justified and pleasing to the general public. Off course, there are Syed Saddiq, Mat Maszlee, Teresa Kok to name a few among Cabinet Ministers lacking political correctness and indifferent to public opinion.

Reporters, bloggers and social media should have critical mind to understand the meaning and context of their words. The better networked and experienced ones could uncover behind the scene happenings, piece it together, and reveal the intention of the statements.

There was public satisfaction to hear Tun Daim’s remind government to fulfill their election promises. While, oppositions were overjoyed with a false sense of victory when Daim called on PH government to stop the blame game and repeating debt story.

Knowing Daim is the scriptwriter for PPBM’s propaganda and PPBM insider’s latest number of Malaya parliamentarian supporting PM at 95, it is more than meets the eye.

In private, Daim been passing cynical remarks to call Tony Pua as market wizard and Lim Guan Eng an economic czar. At almost the same time, Dato Khairuddin Abu Hassan revealed to media of a plot to topple Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir.

Flying in the face of a supposed democratic recession around the world, it led The Economist to place Malaysia on its three-nation-long shortlist for the title “country of the year”.

Yet just over seven months on, the honeymoon period is clearly coming to an end, with prominent members of the new administration formed by the Pakatan Harapan (PH) coalition offering stark warnings in recent days about where it is headed.

“What’s going on is dire. What’s going on is a new PH government failing,” said Ramkarpal Singh, an MP from a family who were staunch opponents of the old Barisan Nasional government, and whose brother is a cabinet minister.

Back to reality and the grey areas one has to deal with to achieve peace and love. On Christmas Day itself, there was a gathering in Klang demanding Justice for Adib and removal of Waythamoorthy. Pro-government media attempted to playdown by reporting crowd size at 1,000 (but SunDaily and The Mole reported 5,000) and highlighted Dato Azwanuddin's politically incorrect speech.

Though many Malaysians are concerned with the state of the nation, the majority could still be in the old habit of finding escapism by looking in awe at the destructive politics of Tun Dr Mahathir. He has always been a politician first and never really the serious nation building statesman. His hands has a reverse Midas touch, including destroying his own efforts.

Friday, December 14, 2018

After dinner and over drinks (mine was Light Coke) last night, an elderly former corporate man turned businessman joined our table for conversation.

He vented his frustration over the state of the nation and destruction of wealth that is happening since May 8th. Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH) was not spared. He was on an “... angry. I can’t take it any more!” mode, to quote a line from a 70s movie classic, Network.

There were many areas of agreement with his general observation, but we reminded him the danger of making generalisation and presumptions. Unless one can put one’s finger on exactly what wrong was done, one should just read news report and watch the public drama in stride.

There have been a decline in ability, inquisitiveness, and depth in the current crop of mainstream reporters.

Sunday, December 09, 2018

The pro-government media is actively trying to play down the number of crowd.

The social media showed extensively images and videos of the gathering that it cannot be disputed to be bigger than any of the BERSIH series.

In anticipation of the large turnout, PPBM and PAN wavered from their earlier stance to favour considering ICERD. Tun Dr Mahathir changed from his cynical swiping of the anti-ICERD rally to U turn to take potshot at SUHAKAM.

PKR is in a dilemma with sizeable number of its Malay members not supportive but non-Malay members are supportive of ICERD. Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim did not put a stand but Nik Nazmi had AMK loudly support ICERD.

The champion behind the idea of ICERD is COMANGO with DAP's hidden hand lies in the background. The recent culprit trying to push ICERD is not controversial Minister Waythamoorthy, who announced government will retify ICERP, but it was Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah.(In the earlier government, it was Dato Nazri Aziz but rejected by Dato Najib}.

He inserted the message without specifically mentioning ICERD in Tun Dr Mahathir's speech at the United Nation. (Kelab Che Det supporters claimed and showed documents Mahathir was involve in writing the speech).

Friday, December 07, 2018

Government announced the closing of Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia. The late Chairman, Dr Zubir Harun, who passed on after GE14, would be turning in his grave to know of this.

Prior to GE14, opposition politicians criticised the giving of "dedak" handouts by government. Within 6 months in power, the agency, which supported the poor, single mothers, and those without means to make a living across all races with fishing rods to fish, was closed up. Naturally, the excuse is political and one can expect the blame to 1MDB, Jho Loh and RM1 trillion debt lie.

Underlying all these moves is DAP pursuit to realise their utopian Malaysian Malaysia for equality across all races at breakneck speed and taking advantage of the political lull of UMNO, PPBM and PKR without consideration for social fallout and massive numbers falling into poverty.

More important than equality is social justice across all races. The equality for budget allocation to all types of school means the more in number, and higher priority under the Federal Constitution like Islamic religious and national schools will get less per school than other type of schools. Brutal budget slashing to MARA, B40s, and other groups under guise of equality is denying social justice.

Fuziah Salleh may not realise but she is being made a front for a DAP-initiated effort to close the non-issue Lynas. In doing so, she is pandering to DAP agenda, assisting their political in-road into Pahang, and denying her fellow Pahang-ites the fishing rod to be economically independent.

Sunday, December 02, 2018

On Facebook recently, an ex-mainstream reporter ridiculed the #FreeNajib meme as #NajibPercuma.

Having being in media for decades and written columns and features, he should be considered journalist but such mentality makes him no different from cub reporter right of a Seremban secondary school.

Dato Najib have been subjected to far worse insults but for that to come from an ex-mainstream reporter, who was actively lobbying and getting PR job from previous PMO and getting money in the multiples to the dedak Najib allegedly gave out to his dedicated cybertroopers, it is uncalled for.

Such ungrateful behaviour and pro-government media switching side and resorting back to the pre-Abdulah Badawi level of devious reporting and crass propaganda makes many unsympathetic to the fate of media companies.

They can play the role as mouthpiece of government but do so professionally as an informed journalist with fair level of objectivity and critical thinking. Reporters are still picking snippets for story than true reporting of events.

Lately, the reports in the media are so tame as though reporters are afraid to ask questions. In the case of the charges on Tan Sri Irwan and Dato Najib, the media failed to ask the pertinent question.